


A Light That Never Goes Out

by R_Cookie



Category: X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: AU, Alternate Universe - Historical, Gore, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, WWII, War!AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-05
Updated: 2012-03-05
Packaged: 2017-11-01 12:37:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/356868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/R_Cookie/pseuds/R_Cookie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was meant to be the war to end all wars; these two men were never supposed to meet. One a German Jew, the other a British surgeon. The odds that their paths should cross were next to none - but War defies the expected. It always has, and always will.</p><p>From the beaches of Dunkirk to the treacherous slopes of Monte Cassino - this is their story.</p><p>WWII AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Light That Never Goes Out

**Author's Note:**

> So. The plot bunny had emerged months ago in the midst of The Exam to destroy my life (I'm still mourning the results. You'll have to pardon me.) when I'd be trawling Clock's tumblr. It grew and gnawed at me and I finally got around to writing it. Hurrah. History geek ftw. Although, with the amount of artistic liberties I've taken with this overgrown baby of a story, History nuts would probably squawk. For which, I must apologise.
> 
> The events are adapted from the BBC production of Dunkirk and further imagined in my nogging after HOURS of research. 
> 
> Characters that may share the same name or resemble an actual person in RL are purely coincidental. 
> 
> Happy reading.
> 
> PS: Thanks to GiottoBlue for the beta! :D

 

 

  


 

 _ 26th May 1940_

_How has it come to this? Two weeks. That is all that has passed, but the days seem to drag on forever and the nights even longer. The air is stifling, rank with the musk and staleness of death. I’ve finally found a summer I cannot wait to escape._

_In Russia, there is a term for the setting summer sun – White Nights, they call it. Elegant. Befitting of the countryside of France too, I imagine. Except there’s naught but rubble and bodies and blood and defeat._

_We have been in retreat now –_ […]

***

 _Dunkerque, 1940_

“Christ. Look at them,” Winston murmurs, clear despite the loud rumbling of the truck. He leans back on the hard bench, jolts his messy head of ginger at the long, endless line of soldiers trudging in the opposite direction. Towards the beaches. The faint glow of light in the wee hours of the day throws the hollows of their cheeks into stark relief, grit and grime smeared on uniform and skin in equal measure. In the protective embrace of darkness, the procession marches on.

Captain Evatt pays the remark no heed, throwing his attention instead to the gangly Private huddled in a corner – his youngest in the Company of Rearguards. Bracing himself against the jerks of the truck along the gravel road, Evatt shuffles over to the boy and sits himself beside him after one of the men wordlessly budges aside. The boy – Erik – is barely old enough to be in the army and it is staggeringly obvious from his face. But Evatt knows the perceptiveness behind mercury-green eyes, knows the boy’s unnatural ability as a marksman – he trained the lad after all – witnessed first-hand the obliteration of a target one-thousand yards away. Without a wind gauge.

“How’re you holding up, boy?” He asks quietly, with a clap to one knee. Evatt feels the muscles tense under his hand, but decides against commenting on the skittishness. Erik looks at his leader with an unreadable expression.

“Alright, Sir. A little nervous.” The accent had admittedly taken some time to get used to.

“Aye, well. A bit of nerves is always good. Keeps you on your toes.” Erik spares a small, mirthless smile.

His long, knobby fingers tighten around his issued rifle.

***

The sun is high and glaring down mercilessly by the time the truck grinds to a halt before the ramshackle brick house fronting the Bergues-Furnes canal. The men of Four Company, First Battalion Coldstream Guards, hop off the vehicle, ground crunching beneath heavy boots. Bren light machine guns, Lee-Enfield rifles, kits and field packs are unloaded in fast efficient trips, quickly stashed in the kitchen of the abandoned building.

“Hanning, Richards, Jameson, I want you to recce the surrounding buildings. Be back within the hour.”

Evatt turns to the rest, “Edwards, Winston, Clark, take the left, start on the trenches. Michaels, Durden, take right. It needs to be done by two. You lot have four hours.”

The captain swerves on his heel and stalks into the house.

“Morgan, I need the radio set up in the kitchen. Room’s going to be our headquarters. Lehnsherr, Redford, Smithson, up top and prepare the Bren nests. Smithson, get the radio up and running in the attic too. Join the trench when you’re done.”

Erik spares only a glance at the captain who unfurls a well-used map on the biggest table available in the kitchen before following the others. The attic is a squalid, dusty and poorly ventilated hovel of tattered wood panes and discarded crates. A few planks are missing from the unintended windows in the wall, and sunlight streams in. Erik follows Redford in gathering and smashing the crates into suitable piles to prop the machine guns on. Methodically, he arms the gun and arranges the ammunition to its left, his own beloved rifle to the right.

There is a sudden flare of static from the ground level, the spitting and hissing echoing in the radio being tamed by Smithson when an abrupt silence ensues. And then there’s a voice.

Erik makes out the wavering report on BBC about the situation, of the _undefeated_ BEF returning to Britain (A lie. So blatant.), and the buttered praise for the evacuation efforts. As if pretty words would change the pain and sacrifice that will _have_ to come to pass in the next few days. Erik is not immune to the _power_ of words, of course not, but in this instance the glorified task of retreat being relayed to the Britons is pointless. It will change _nothing_ for the quarter million being caged in. He is hardly alone on this sentiment – Smithson’s soft scoffing is not lost on him.

Redford picks himself up from the dusty, gray floor and taps the other two on the shoulder. Three hours to dig those trenches. The report continues, rambling even as the three men clamber down the ladder.

“ _… defending the twenty-six mile perimeter known as the Corunna line._ ”

There is a humorless chuckle from Morgan who sits hunched in front of the battered radio. Captain Evatt remains unmoving from his perch over the map now streaked in red ink, but he gives a soft snort in difference.

“We’ve got a name now, boys.”

***

The house sits at least thirty meters from the slopping grounds that bleed into the large canal, one in a long row of old buildings. Unkempt and neglected, the shrubs and hedges run wild like a jungle out front. Weak, tattered fences bar the growth from interfering with the primitive, gravel laden road that divides the houses from the small hill dipping down into murky waters – but that is the extent of the civilization. Beyond the canal is a vast span of untouched land, green and untainted, merging with dense forestation.

And it is in the depths and distraction of the forest that the Germans lie in wait. Why they have yet to emerge is anyone’s guess.

The trenches are dug and ready by the time Sergeant Clark is sent for by the captain. Erik follows after the rest – up to the attic with Redford and Smithson while the others head for their packs and shelter from the summer heat. Shuffling about in the stuffy space, Erik sits himself down behind his Bren with considerably less care than he normally would. He rolls his shoulders, hoping, by some stroke of good fortune, to work out the kinks in his muscles. It proves woefully futile, serving only to cause Erik’s eyes to sting when he fails to swipe beads of sweat away in time.

Erik tries not to think of the heat. Or the most uncomfortable way his uniform is essentially plastered to his skin.

Beside him, Redford takes a sip from his canteen and wipes his face absently on a sleeve. The actions are natural, instinctual to a man well accustomed to a rougher life. Gray eyes are hard when they meet Erik’s, but the man softens the tension along the edges and offers a brief smile. Unthinking. Erik untangles his limbs to stretch out behind the rearsight. The world begins to shrink, noises muffling, vision narrowing to the shutter and metal pincers. In his hands, calloused pads grip the coarse make of the handle, index finger poised over the trigger. There is only the steady beating of his heart and his breathing.

Beyond the zone, soft murmurs fill the silence of the attic, trickling in from the kitchen.

***

Erik doesn’t know how long he’s lain unmoving behind the machine gun, quietly observing the emptiness before him. It is disturbing, this calm, this inactivity. By the time the sun finally sets, the exhaustion that creeps up on him is distracting. In the loneliness of his head, Erik conjures hundreds of scenarios, none of them good. The riotous cacophony of gunfire, blood and dismembered limbs. Is it fear or adrenaline or bloodlust that thrums against his chest? Erik can no longer tell.

“Lehnsherr, your shift’s done. Budge over, son. You too, Red.”

Erik starts at the low voice beside his ear. Captain Evatt is crouched next him, brows knitted and his forehead covered in a thin sheen of sweat. The familiar sting of cigarette smoke saturates the cramped space and it is a familiarity Erik draws comfort from. Wary of stiff muscles, Erik dislodges himself from his sprawl in the nest.

Evatt takes one last puff before handing the cigarette over to Erik. The boy accepts it without question – the burn of smoke easing his nerves.

“Just watches, no manning. Not gonna be seeing any action tonight,” the man says distractedly, attention set on the view through his binoculars. Apparently satisfied, the captain tucks it back into its pouch and turns to reach for the ladder.

“Sir?”

The captain releases his hold on the wood tips and grunts in his usual fashion, willing the boy continue.

“Why has nothing happened? They are… right there, _ja_?”

“Aye, but they’re not pressin’ their advantage yet,” Evatt murmurs into the quiet of the confined space. “They don’t see a need to.”

“How can they - ?”

“Lad, they don’t need to ‘cause they already know they outnumber us.”

Erik fiddles with the significantly shorter cigarette in his grimy hands.

“By how much, Sir?” Smithson asks blithely. At the question, their leader swipes brusquely down the bristles at the back of his neck – a gesture Erik has seen often enough to interpret.

“The official report that just got through the radio says forty thousand to our five.”

“How long… are we supposed to hold the line, Sir?” The air suddenly feels stifling; Erik tugs at his collar discreetly.

“A matter of hours, I imagine. Once the last of the BEF are past the perimeter, we’ll be clear to make a run for the beaches ourselves.”

If the supposedly short duration is meant to be encouraging, it fails spectacularly. The only thing on their minds is the knowledge that once the Germans launch their offensive attack, this entire operation becomes a suicide mission.

There is a clamoring of footsteps up the ladder rungs leading to the attic and the blond buzz of Morgan’s head pops into view.

“Sir, new orders from Major-General Alexander’s just been radioed in from HQ.” Captain Evatt’s body instantly tenses up, the lines of his shoulders rigid as his attention immediately snaps to Morgan. “All Coldstream Guards are to hold the perimeter for another night. No retreat until twenty-two hundred hours, Sir.”

Erik grinds the cigarette under his foot.

“Well, then,” the captain huffs. “You have your answer.”

~*~

_12 th Casualty Clearing Station_

A young man in a bloodstained white coat bustles through the makeshift Post-Op– the largest room of the abandoned château– and straight to the operating theatre. He chances a perfunctory knock on the open door before hurrying in. The soldier lying on the table is smeared in grime and blood as if it were war paint; the sight of a bloody tourniquet on his right knee eliciting an inward wince. The young surgeon considers it a small mercy that the man is unconscious – the anesthetic supplies are running depressingly low.

He gives a nod to the orderly and takes the man’s place, pressing down on the soldier’s left knee.

“Another bloody _fucking_ tourniquet. What the hell are the field boys doing?” The young man doesn’t look up at the chief surgeon’s steady cursing. Everyone’s incredibly high strung these days. He hears the new set of footsteps halt by the table, and he watches Major Newman accept the blade with a grim face. Severe blue eyes meet the chief surgeon’s and the older man sighs.

“Bye bye, leg.”

  


***

Major Newman finishes a round in the post-operative holding room and heads out into the night. The youngest doctor on his team is seated on the steps, dimly lit lamp in hand. As always.

“Charlie,” he says, grit crunching under his boot.

“Sir.”

“You holding up alright?” Newman asks tentatively. “One too many amputations, yes?” He takes a deep breath of the humid night air. It’s summer and the heat is inescapable, really, but it’s an improvement from the stuffiness in the château.

“It isn’t that, Sir. I can handle it well enough.” Newman offers an encouraging nod. “It’s the stores, Sir. We’re out of most _everything_. No anesthetic, no fresh water, no electricity, not a drug in sight for the wounded. But the casualties keep pouring in, cases upon cases of perforated abdomens, gas gangrene – ”

“It’s what happens when we’re the last medical station, Charles,” he says quietly. Out of the corner of his eye, Newman watches the boy – the _prodigy_ of Britain’s finest medical school – swallow thickly.

“But we’ll manage, you know we will.”

Glassy blue eyes look resolutely back at him; Charles, with his wavy, cropped hair and boyish charm – he looks so painfully _young_.

Newman gives a tight smile.

“Get back inside and kip for a few, Charlie. The orderlies and I will manage fine. You look dead on your feet.”

“Sir,” he says, rising a little unsteadily to his feet. He does not, however, say what’s on the tip of his tongue. _So do you, Sir_.

~*~

There is a dim awareness of the proceedings around him – the shuffling of feet to the rustling grass, the heavy breathing of his men as they lift stretchers, the faint buzzing in the air… Major Newman hears the loud slam of the metal doors and the obligatory slap against them to signal that the ambulance has been secured. His mind is woefully sluggish for some reason, and it takes a lot more effort than ought to be strictly necessary before he rouses at the gentle shaking.

“Major Newman, Sir. Patients have been loaded.”

He forces gummy eyes to blink the face into focus.

“With all due respect, Sir, may I drive to Dunkirk?” Charles’ concerned expression looks resolutely back at him. “I know the route.”

“I’m alright. It’s just an hour’s drive,” Newman says hoarsely.

“Sir, you’ve been operating without rest for the last three days,” Charles retorts quietly so as not to create a scene. “Please.”

Newman is well-acquainted with military protocols and this is supposed to be part of his duty, but his mind feels fuzzy around the edges even as an inexplicable sense of reassurance engulfs him. Charles’ eyes seem to soften. Before his mind catches up with his body, Newman finds himself beside the truck with the young man in the driver’s seat.

“Be careful,” is all he can say as Charles starts up the engine.

The road towards the beaches of Dunkirk is a trail of rubble and bodies, exhausted men slumped against half-demolished homes and shop houses. It takes careful maneuvering to wind through the narrowed roads, but the shores and tents soon come into view. Charles pulls up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by downcast soldiers milling about the sprawling beach with dozens of abandoned trucks and numerous tents erected. He parks the ambulance closest to the largest and most bustling.

Charles walks to the back of the truck and spots several men bearing the Red Cross on their helmets – he wills them over.

“Could you help me move the wounded to the extraction point?” he asks. The look that the others share is not lost on him.

“See here, Lieutenant, there has been new orders and we’re running out of space _fast_ ,” the soldier nearest to Charles says.

“I don’t – ”

“Look, we’ll help you move this batch, then you can go haggle with the captain over ‘ere,” another soldier interrupts, this one with a nasty gash patched up on the left cheek. “C’mon, lads.”

Together, the small group of medics hoists the stretchers to an open space beside a Regimental Aid Post. As they round a corner, Charles takes in the sight before him and _understands_. Laid side by side are two rows of patients barely sheltered from the sun, men Charles recognizes from the château, men he’d helped put back together.

“They were brought over more than a day ago!” he says, whirling on the soldiers. “Why are they still here?”

Scar-face clenches his fist and visibly braces himself, gestures with a hand to continue this out of earshot.

“It’s like we said. Captain Tennant has given new orders to de-prioritize the wounded in the evacuation plan. We’re running out of time, mate.”

As a medical man, it seems completely unfathomable – he’d joined this war to _help_ , to keep the men alive. He cannot even begin to wrap his mind around the idea of abandoning his patients to certain death. It’s just not possible. Charles looks up and sees the wary expressions on the men’s faces, and belatedly realizes his scowl. But whatever aggression they were expecting from him doesn’t come. Charles just squares his shoulders and marches towards the largest tent.

He barely manages a salute as an officer, dressed in full Service Dress – Major General Alexander, if the stars are any indication – breezes past him, past the netting draped over stacks of crates. Charles ducks under and shoots a glance over his shoulder at the retreating back of the commander. Something hadn’t felt right.

Captain Bill Tennant is a stern man with neatly cropped, sandy blond hair who carries himself with an unmistakable posture and rigidity bred into him from years spent in the army. Amidst the young faces, the captain easily stands out, hunched over a map and a radio which one of the men frantically works with.

“Sir?” he calls out, wiping the hesitation from his voice.

A loud hum sounds overhead as a plane drones past, and it drowns out his voice. Charles flinches out of reflex. As the buzzing of the camp resumes, Charles tries again. The captain turns.

“Sir, I’m Lieutenant Charles Xavier, RAMC.”

Tennant dips his head in acknowledgement. “At ease, Lieutenant.”

“How may I help you?” the captain’s voice is raspy and not a little strained. His uniform, as befits an officer, has seen evidence of war, rumpled and stained by dust and dirt. Charles did not need to exert himself at all to feel the gravity of the man’s weariness bearing down on the world around him.

“Sir, I was told to ask you for the change in orders regarding the wounded. I’ve just come up from the Twelfth Casualty Clearing Station and the patients our chief surgeon sent over the day before are still here.”

Tennant waits patiently for him to finish and when he does, there’s a slump to his shoulders and an apology in his reply.

“We’ve had to de-prioritize the wounded, Xavier. It isn’t that I don’t understand, nor am I unsympathetic. But we have orders to get as many of our men home and the fact remains that the wounded would take up twice as much space and take twice as long to load onto the ships.”

Charles bites down on the helplessness threatening to overwhelm him. He cannot fault the logic, cannot change the orders – he _can_ , but he won’t. He knows, however, what the captain _isn’t_ saying, he knows all too well the almost certain fate of those who remain behind.

“There isn’t much we can even do anymore, Sir. We’ve run out of everything – anesthetic, medicine, fresh water… we’ve had to close down the operating theatre, Sir! Most of these men are in a bad way, they need proper medical attention or they won’t stand a chance.”

“Lieutenant – ” The captain draws a palm across his face, the lines suddenly stark and telling. He breathes out a heavy breath only to exacerbate the weariness. “I would help. I would if I could.”

Tenant looks away into the darkened skies that bleed into mottled waters stained maroon.

“If… if you can hold out for another day, I might be able to do something.”

Charles fists his hands by his side. He can _hear_ the captain’s thoughts for all the hope his words seek to reassure.

“Sir.”

But the captain is no longer looking at him.

Charles turns around, back to the truck, and begins the drive back to the outskirts. And if he soothes the desperate, sluggish minds of his patients on the way out with a flicker of his gift, nobody is the wiser.

~*~

_4 Company, Coldstream Rearguards_

Through the cracks of the wooden boards, the first streak of color seeping into the night sky peeks through. The dawning of the seventh day of Operation Dynamo is lost to the men. There is no birdsong, no rustling of leaves in the early morning breeze; there is only an unnatural silence in the world as the first is spotted.

“Sir, sir! I see ‘em,” Redford hisses.

Evatt shuffles quietly across the attic and squints into his binoculars. Sure enough, in the light mist of early morn are smatterings of German soldiers advancing across the fields.

Completely unaware of their presence.

“Smithson, haul up the rest. Now!” Evatt says, voice pitched low and urgent. There’s a small pocket of time, he wagers, to allow for the krauts to amass in numbers – it would make for easier picking. As it is, their element of surprise is their one and only leverage. They have to make it count.

Erik sees them as mere flecks amidst the tall grass between the metal sides of the Bren’s rearsight. Without a scope or binoculars, the soldiers look like nothing more than oversized ants dotting the field.

But Erik can _feel_ them. Foot soldiers and strategists, officers and scouts armed with pistols tucked into holsters at the waist, a rifle propped against shoulders here and there. The Germans are complacent and Erik will relish their downfall.

“Stand to!”

Erik tenses his shoulders and his eyes narrow. The world begins to shrink once more to the trigger and the captain’s orders. Everything else would be a distraction. He has waited long for this moment and he is ready for revenge. He isn’t that _child_ anymore.

“First round, seven hundred!”

Erik cocks the machine gun.

“Fire!”

The burst of sound echoes loud in the small attic, shutting out all else in an unending pulse, the noise hammering against Erik’s skull. In his hands, he calms the gun, blunting the jerking recoil that shudders Redford’s body beside him. The bullets spray the ground in a wide arc of dirt and blades of grass that burst forth from the ground; inched higher, bodies begin to slump abruptly to the earth in spurts of red that splatter the gray-green uniforms.

Adrenaline surges through his veins, blood pumping loud and indecent in his ears and Erik has never flown higher.

***

Thomas Evatt has come from a long line of soldiers – his father had been a General of the British Army, his grandfather an officer of the Royal Navy and his great grandfather a Captain of the army. He has spent more than half his life in the service of his country, throwing his youth into the throes of bright-eyed lads eager to prove their worth. He has trained with and taught scores of men the art of survival, the beauty and power of a soldier’s rifle, the importance of protecting one’s weapons.

And in all those years, never before has he encountered the ferocity and affinity for firearms between man and weapon until Erik Lehnsherr. He has known talented soldiers, seen his fair share of young men instinctively tuned to the rigors of war and its inhumanity, adaptable to a frightening degree that he doesn’t care to wonder the cause of. But nothing had prepared him for the single-minded focus of a gangly, impassive young Jew who bore a haunting in the fiery green of his eyes, whose aura cut clear and sharp and determined amidst the indecisive male posturing of the recruits.

Thomas had understood it then: revenge.

That one emotion strong enough to drive a man to his limits, a hardness that saw no bounds till the objective was realized. Lehnsherr was quiet and unobtrusive, content with fading into the background and allowing the others to brag and brawl like children, the reality of the battlefields to come as yet settling in. He rose to no bait, no taunt or insult to the glaring fact that he was German – The Enemy. He spoke only when spoken to, followed orders to the letter and never wavered. (But his words carried an overtly strong accent that perhaps was the reason for his silence.)

When the lads were flung into the world of firearms, it was Lehnsherr– surprisingly unsurprising– who took to them like a fish to water. No matter the weapon, no matter how green, there wasn’t a single gun the boy could not tame. Thomas had never seen anything like it.

And perhaps it had been the product of overactive imagination but Lehnsherr had not batted an eyelid each time those long fingers had pressed down on the trigger. The cool, unflappable calm seemed much too detached to Thomas – but he’d told himself it was nothing to be concerned with, not when there wasn’t anything to actually kill. He’s seen men behave like perfect soldiers _off_ the battlefield but spiral out thereafter, surely.

Watching the young man gun down soldier after soldier without a flicker of emotion now, though, Evatt isn’t so certain anymore.

“Lehnsherr! Redford! Leave off, rotate. Hanning, Edwards, take over.”

Redford visibly relaxes at the command, relieved for the break after four hours of continuous gun fire. The tension slips from his broad shoulders though his hand trembles from the recoil. Smithson steadies the fingers that seek the canteen of water. Erik dislodges himself from his Bren nest in one fluid move, incomprehensible grace that seems entirely incongruous here of all places. Evatt claps him a little uneasily on one wiry arm and offers a swig of French wine from his personal liquor flask. It’s about the only other substitute for fresh water around here.

“Sir!” Hanning yelps over the deafening noise.

“They’re using civilians as shields, Sir!”

“Fucking krauts,” Evatt mutters under his breath at the sight through his binoculars. Locals, old and young, men and women are being marched with their hands in the air and guns to their backs. Farmers from these abandoned buildings or from the nearest town across the canal, most likely, Evatt thinks.

“Halt! Hold your fire, dammit!” he barks.

Hanning and Edwards loosen their grips instantly and in the sudden ceasefire, the overwhelming smell of smoke and gunpowder fills the air.

Erik senses it before they hear it – the whizzing of a bullet as it darts through the air and through the narrow opening of broken panels. Without a thought, he throws himself against Hanning, tipping the man to his side and overturning the ammunition box just as a shot buries itself in the wall.

“Christ, how did – ” The bewildered stares of twelve men is an uncomfortable feeling Erik had more than hoped to avoid. This couldn’t be explained away by luck or instinct or any other excuse Erik has used before in training. The shot had come with no warning, without the familiar crack to shatter the silence. But now was _not_ the time for explanations.

“Please,” Erik hisses curtly, voice so hoarse from disuse. “Sir, not now.” There really isn’t time; he can feel each slide of metal as more rifles are brought out onto the field, loaded and impatient. “Permission to take arms, Sir?” It doesn’t come out as a question.

“What?” The captain stares, brows furrowed deep. “Human _shields_ , Lehnsherr. Not even sharpshooting would work. The odds of hitting an innocent are too high – ”

“I can do it, Sir.”

His proclamation is met with hesitancy and a tightening of Evatt’s grip on the binoculars.

“Fine.”

Hanning scoots over, giving Erik space to stretch out beside the Bren. In his hands, Erik hefts the familiar weight of his Lee-Enfield Rifle and whispers lovingly to it.

“ _Lass mich nicht im Stich_.”

His first bullet takes down a soldier standing between two civilians, his second: an officer who’d leaned into view for just a second – it’d been enough to put a bullet between his eyes. His third shot is an impossible hit.

Evatt watches through his binoculars as a German crumples to the ground from where he’d been completely hidden by an elderly couple. The only way it could have happened would have been if the bullet had _curled_ around the old man and flown straight through from the side. Judging from the direction the grotesque burst of red had erupted from, Evatt would say that had been exactly what the bullet had done.

The men watch their youngest member run through the bolt action like a veteran, steadily depleting the ten rounds with deadly accuracy in a tense silence of incredulity. Evatt cannot speak for the rest— it isn’t so much disgust at the fact that the lad is quite possibly a _mutant_ , the stuff of demented rumors that run through society every few years, so much as it is the abruptness of such a revelation, an unthinkable explanation for his prowess.

Morgan catches his eye and there is no revulsion, only surprise. And rightly so. This is war and having a fit over these things is a luxury nobody can afford.

“Winston, show me those skills you always harp about,” Evatt says after a moment. The redhead is already busy falling into position, an almost manic grin plastered on his grimy face. He’d take manic over discord any day.

“Aye, Sir. Can’t let a young ‘un like yeh outshine me, aye, Lehnny?” Winston sniffs airily; it works to ease the tension somewhat.

If Evatt notices the faint, upward curl to Lehnsherr’s thin lips as he takes new stripper clips from Hanning, he says nothing.

~*~

_12 th Casualty Clearing Station_

Charles arrives back at the château to the news of every medical officer being called to the emptied kitchen. He finds them in clusters, looking at the chaplain – a man better known simply as Cockie – standing up front. In his hand is a helmet filled with slips of paper. Charles weaves his way over to Major Newman and gathers quickly from the darkness of his thoughts the situation.

Orders have come in for the evacuation of all medical officers with the exception of a skeleton staff of one officer to a hundred wounded. Balloting, it seems, is the only means of selection.

“Now, I shall read out the names, and the last three shall have to remain,” Cockie says, his weary face apologetic. Charles steals a glance at his chief surgeon and hears his thoughts as an endless swirl of images. He’s thinking dispiritedly of his family.

“Gilzean, Adams, Smedley, Critchley, Murphy…,” he continues.

Charles forces down the grimace when the chaplain pauses – it would be unnecessary to continue.

“Newman, Heward and Williamson will form the skeleton crew alongside the orderlies.”

Newman has to close his eyes. Seeing the major bow his head in resignation, the helplessness eats at him. Charles wishes desperately that he could take away the resignation that looms heavily in the man’s chest. He could tamper with the major’s mind to ease the moribundity, but to do so would be to lie about the gravity of his situation. There is nothing to feel even the slightest bit comforted over in being made to face almost certain death.

***

The officers are ready within the hour, what few possessions they have are shouldered in their field packs. Major Newman sees each and every one of them off, exchanging obligatory well wishes that mean increasingly little. He frowns a little when he realizes that though there’s only Cockie left, he’s yet to see Charles. But perhaps, he thinks, the lad is simply bad at goodbyes. It doesn’t make him feel any better.

He isn’t aware of the presence lingering in view of the blind spot where he stands.

Charles watches Newman’s polite smile become ever more strained and he cannot fault him for it.

When Cockie embraces the major, the poor man visibly sags into the chaplain’s steadying comfort. He is a breath away from clinging before his senses kick in and his dignity clamors to attention. Cockie places his cross into the major’s shocked hands and despite his protest, Newman is made to safeguard it, that it shall be blessed to bring him luck.

It is only after the rumble of the truck fades away that Charles shows himself.

“Sir,” he says cautiously to Newman’s back.

The major starts violently and his blue eyes widen at the sight of him.

“Charlie! Why in heaven’s name are you still here? You just missed – they won’t drive back, you fool!” Charles almost smiles at the look of outrage that flushes the too-pale face. He hears all too clearly what the man does _not_ say.

 _‘I would have given anything to have been on that truck_.’

“Sir, you’re not alone,” Charles says calmly. He pushes his hands into his pockets and smiles. “You shouldn’t have to be; not in this.”

Newman stares at him in exasperation, completely bewildered by Charles’ supposed bout of insanity. He lifts a hand as though it was made of lead and drags it across his eyes.

“Charles,” he starts softly. “I am under no illusions of what it means for us who remain here. But _you_ – _Christ_.”

Charles narrows the distance between them to lay a hand on the major’s, the trembling one that covers his eyes. In this, he will allow the quiet placation of emotions.

“Sir, have faith with me on this. I would have gladly offered my spot to you had there been no need for a senior doctor. I’d tried speaking to Cockie, Sir.”

Newman doesn’t lift his arm away. “Have you no family you wish to see?” he asks curtly, almost sarcastic.

Charles has to grin wryly at this.

“None who are alive or would even care, Sir.”

The expression the chief surgeon finally gives him can only be described as pity.

~*~

 _Corunna Line, Bergues-Furnes Canal_

It’s been thirteen sweltering hours since the first gun was fired. Thirteen hours without food and rest and with minimal amounts of water. There simply isn’t time. One wrong move, one slight hesitation and the chances of survival plummet. Already positions to the left and right of the Company have fallen back despite clear orders against a retreat until twenty-two hundred hours. Their flanks are now exposed to the full brunt of the rapidly amassing German forces.

Stuck to trench warfare and limited ammunition, Three and Four Company are all that stands between the enemy and a quarter of a million Allied forces awaiting evacuation.

Up in the attic, Erik throws down the final cartridge for the Bren and grabs the last few stripper clips for his rifle as he clambers down the rickety ladder, the heavy thudding of gunfire ringing incessantly in the background. All the rest have already headed for the trenches, having left Erik to pick off the German sharpshooters from his perch.

As he stumbles out of the ramshackle house, he is assailed by the carnage laid bare before him. By the doorstep is the prone figure of Durden, bled out on the ground from a shot to the sternum. In the foxhole closest to Erik, the mutilated remains of Jameson and Clark stare at him with what remains of their eyes, the rest of their skulls having been blasted to an unidentifiable mess on the stained earth.

Erik skids into the trench up ahead just in time as a volley of bullets send a spray of dirt in the spot he’d been at not a second ago. He pushes himself against the side facing the canal and scrambles along westward, slipping on the uneven ground of loose soil. Some distance away, he spots a body unmoving and blotted in the unmistakable crimson of blood. Erik sprints toward it as best he can.

For the first time since entering the Royal Army, Erik feels the gut-wrenching fear he’d locked tightly away, along with the rest of those tedious emotions, begin to diffuse into him at the familiar face that comes into view. It is not unlike an entire bucket of ice being upended on his chest to freeze his heart for a beat before sending it thundering against his ribcage. Erik doesn’t care for it.

Captain Evatt’s rugged features are slack and his usually piercing brown eyes are closed but twitch sluggishly beneath his eyelids. Erik is hit by a wave of relief as soon as he notices the slow but steady rise and fall of the captain’s chest with every shuddering breath. Evatt’s face is drained of life, his blood seeping from the horrible wound to his neck and shoulder that paints half his uniform red. He wheezes pathetically.

“Sir? Sir, stay with me. Do not – I will call for a medic,” Erik murmurs hastily, applying pressure to the shoulder wound.

Evatt responds weakly with some semblance of a shrug that has Erik’s hands come away slick with blood.

“Don’t… bother, lad…’s a waste,” Evatt grinds out so softly, Erik has to lean in to catch the words. “I’m gone, Lehnsherr.”

“ _Nein_. No, you will be alright. Let me just – ” the insistent tug on his wrist freezes him. He doesn’t understand the quirk to bloody lips, doesn’t understand how his leader can smile whilst blood bubbles from a corner of his thin lips.

“No lies, boy… Don’t – Stay for… a minute,” Evatt whispers.

Erik swallows even though his mouth is suddenly dry.

“H-Here,” Evatt says absently, trembling fingers fumbling futilely for something hidden under his collar. Erik reaches over to help gingerly, tugging on a simple silver chain to which a bullet is attached. Evatt fiddles clumsily with the clasp of the necklace single-handedly.

“Take… it,” he says forcefully.

Erik frowns at the notion, but at the persistent pushing of the dying man’s hand, Erik examines the bullet carefully. It is tarnished from age and sweat but he can tell its make nonetheless – it dates back to the first Enfield rifle ever produced.

“I cannot take this,” Erik says. Not an heirloom.

“Don’t… be a tosser, Erik…” Erik’s laurel green eyes widen at the use of his first name, a slip Evatt doesn’t seem to notice. “It’s for… luck. Keep it. So you don’t… forget.”

Erik’s grip on the other man’s arm tightens when the body slouches even further.

“Sir?”

“I… know the look… boy,” Evatt says, eyes closed once more in pain. “So, you go get your revenge. Get it… and quell… that festering… emotion you squirrel…away.”

Erik doesn’t know how to respond. He’d been so careful.

“Get your revenge… but don’t you _dare_ lose yourself to it,” Evatt growls. “Don’t let it consume you.”

Erik winces at the wet cough.

“That’s… an order, boy.” Evatt jabs a finger in his face and Erik cannot stifle the involuntary laugh. “Don’t… or I’ll haunt your skinny, freakish arse.” There is only half-hearted severity to the threat. But Erik wouldn’t actually put it past his leader.

Erik dutifully slips the necklace over his head and the metal feels comfortingly cool against his heart. And then the captain does something nobody has done to Erik for the last ten years – his hand blood-caked and dirty, the man ruffles Erik’s mussed hair with nothing but affection, dilated eyes warm and soft around the edges.

“Go on, then, Lehnny…use that gift of yours to… win…make us proud.”

Evatt’s breathing has slowed considerably and they both know it is only a matter of time. Erik squeezes his eyes shut and bows his head low, the hand resting heavy atop his skull. He grasps his mentor’s shoulder one last time and whispers harshly against the prickling sensation of his eyes.

“ _Bis bald, mein Herr_.”

Then, Erik runs.

~*~

 _12 th Casualty Clearing Station_

Major Newman has been gone for two hours when the bombing begins. Out on the fringes of Dunkirk and a distance from the front line, the last medical facility has been rather safe from shelling, obscure, and likely a waste of enemy resources. Until now.

Charles hears the familiar whistling as planes humming overhead let loose a chain of bombs. He has been organizing the hasty transfer of wounded who’d dotted the vast expanse of green surrounding the château amongst tents and what has been converted into a graveyard, back into the shelter since the first wave. But there are several that remain, the crippled who’d sought the fresh air and who can do no more than hobble away slowly as the world erupts in showers of earth around them as bombs impact mercilessly.

Under normal circumstances, Charles’ smallish stature aside, the orderlies and he were all in excellent shape to personally carry the patients back in. But by the end of two weeks, the strain of restless nights and malnourishment has taken its toll. Panting heavily, he watches an orderly half-haul, half-carry a patient swaddled in bloodied bandages across the grounds. To his right, he spots a soldier, his head wrapped in white, his arms likewise, and Charles makes for him, lungs burning in his chest.

His mind, dulled by the fear consuming every single thought in the men around him, only dimly registers an increasingly loud whistling from above. It is only his body that reacts in a violent jerk as the bomb strikes the ground several yards away, sending gravel and soil into the air in an invisible wave. As he lowers his arms, half-blind now and ears ringing, Charles has only a moment to spare _No, oh God, no_ at the exploded remnants of the soldier he’d been heading toward. The man is now nothing more than a smear of shredded uniform and half-formed skeletal structure, the flesh and organs either ruptured into a bloody pulp or strewn across the ground in a red mess.

As a surgeon, as one who has been thrown unceremoniously into the brutality of meatball surgery, Charles has seen and treated a whole myriad of serious, grotesque injuries. But _nothing_ will ever accustom him to watching a fellow man fall eviscerated before his eyes. Charles turns his head away and chokes down the bile as he dashes back into the sanctuary of the château.

***

“Charles!”

Newman shouts as soon as the ambulance stops, bolting into the building, all traces of his renewed hope fading with each fragment of destruction that greets him.

“Heward! Williamson!”

A shock of blond hair pops into view at the main door and the major is greeted by the haggard face of Williamson.

“Sir. The lad’s doing rounds,” the man says calmly, gesturing to the converted ballroom. Newman claps him once on the shoulder before making a beeline for the boy. Perhaps it’d been his paternal instincts flaring as they were wont to – it came with the job – but Charles might as well be his son for all the worry that floods him at the clear evidence of an air raid outside.

“Charles,” he breathes as he finds him kneeling by a stretcher. His relief catches in his chest at the exhaustion painted stark on the young man’s gaunt face. The dark smudges under his eyes are all the more pronounced in the dimness of the room. The boy sways on his feet when he rises, forced smile barely in place.

“Sir.”

Newman doesn’t take his wary eyes off the other officer as he calls for Heward. “Take over for him, will you? He’s about to collapse.”

“’s what I’ve told him, Sir,” is all the man says, stepping past them.

“Charles, you are going to rest for at least the next four hours. We’ll do fine with just the three of us,” Newman orders in his best doctor voice, even if it is a little frayed at the edges.

Charles glances over his shoulder with large blue eyes, stumbling along as Newman nudges his back in a bid to guide him to the single spare bunk in the servant’s quarters. He lets the major fuss over him, too curious over the abnormally bright spark in the surgeon’s mind.

“What happened, Sir?”

“Beg your pardon?” Newman answers, confused, as he tucks Charles in with a scraggly piece of cloth masquerading as a blanket; the action most likely absent and by rote given the fact that Charles looks _nothing_ like the chubby, silver-eyed little boy who waits for his father in the modest flat in London.

“You’d meant to tell me something earlier.” Except that he hadn’t, not after taking in the mess that had been made of the area surrounding the Clearing Station. Charles had merely sensed it as the major had driven in.

“Oh.” Newman blinks. “I’d spoken to Major General Alexander on the way back after dropping the wounded off at the beaches.” He adds rather sheepishly, “Barged into a meeting, actually.” Charles regards him with amusement through his half-lidded eyes.

“He said he’ll send a runner down as soon as the ambulatory ships reach the harbor. There’s hope for the men yet, Charlie.”

Charles smiles back in answer to Newman’s because he does not trust himself to speak. Not when something in his heart tells him that it will amount to nothing. Luck smiles on _nobody_ , he’s come to understand.

***

It used to trouble Philip, back when all the clocks had first ceased to work. It felt strangely unsettling not to know the time, particularly in the endless days of summer when daylight stretched on to leave but two hours of nightfall.

It did, undeniably, have its uses, back when the operating theatre had still been open. Nobody would know the truth regarding just how long they’ve been up on their feet, staring continuously into the innards of soldiers, toying with human carpentry for what could have been forty-eight hours straight.

They’d attempted to fashion a rudimentary sundial once but it wouldn’t take.

Thereafter, Philip had simple ignored the concept of time altogether. Instead, he’d lose himself in whatever task he was doing and look to the sky every now and then, relishing the moment when the colors bled into one another. A sight so vastly different from the bloodbath that envelopes him.

He’s in the midst of shoveling the soil back over the body of a soldier who hadn’t survived the air raid when he hears the unmistakable puttering of a motorcycle engine.

“Sir, the runner – ” an orderly huffs, jogging over.

“Sir, the ships ‘ave been sighted, sir!” The runner hollers over the noise of his bike and gestures wildly. Philip can hardly begrudge him the excited gesticulation even if it isn’t for the same reason that causes his heart to leap. The orderly takes the shovel from his hands, for which Philip smiles gratefully before taking off in a sprint to load up the truck with as many wounded as he possibly can.

***

There is a curious amount of smoke wafting from the beaches in slow, lazy spirals. As the truck swings onto the sand, Philip chokes on his gasp at the telling signs strewn about in the familiar disarray of patterns marked on the sand. He guns the engine tentatively, unwilling to believe the obvious truth. His legs nearly give way when he drops onto the beach, staring off the on-site medical officers with a weak flick of the wrist.

Philip heads straight for the commander’s tent, darting under the netting in a trancelike state.

“Captain, I’d heard the runner regarding the ships for the wounded?”

Tennant doesn’t so much as look at him. His body is a tense line where it leans over a map, looking distantly into the sodding horizon. The man dips his head, eyes drawn to the map. Philip feels an unfamiliar fury bubble up inside at the dismissive nonchalance.

“It must have been a mistake. A false alarm.”

Philip stares. “A ‘false alarm’,” he parrots softly.

He doesn’t remember much after, just the faint impression of unloading his patients and the long drive back. He feels nothing; he doesn’t _know_ what to feel.

Later, when he arrives back at the château and completes his rounds immediately without rest from the drive, he ambles into the empty servant’s quarters. He doesn’t see the worried faces of his team. Philip collapses onto the bed like a marionette ripped off its strings.

Later, in the silence of the room, Philip sits on the edge of the cot and buries his head in his hands and cries until his eyes are gummy and tears sting his cheeks.

~*~

 _4 Company, 1 st Battalion Coldstreamers_

The sudden cessation of gunfire is startling. Perhaps it is a brief window for reloading, they do not know. It seems unlikely. But it is the best time for them to retaliate, if only they’d had the firepower. The Germans, however, they know of their depletion and the smug bastards take their time.

The lazy, awkward silence drags on… and on.

Redford nudges his shoulder and nods at the sky. Sometime in the last fifteen minutes or so, the sun has receded and taken along with it the warm orangey tones. Night has broken and anointed the sky a deceitful calm of deep cobalt.

The Germans have halted for the day and it is the sign they have fought so hard for.

The Coldstreamers, or what remains of their Company, creep farther along the trenches and toward the barn on the far side of their assigned perimeter. One by one, the men heft themselves out, gravel crunching noisily under their boots as they hasten toward the abandoned farm that houses their way out of this hellhole.

Each body slumps heavily onto the wooden benches with an audible sigh of relief. The truck, mass produced and barely sturdy, rocks with each man that clambers in, messy limbs and weary faces. Somebody, Morgan, most likely, hauls himself into the driver’s seat and slams the door shut with a loud bang, the clash of metal ringing through Erik’s body. And then, just like that, the engine growls to life and they’re off.

The drive is bumpy and the truck rattles over every little irregularity on the road, sending the men off their seats here and there. It ought to be impossible for anybody to be lulled to sleep, but it seems everything in war challenges the expected. Erik is the only one, Redford aside, who does not succumb to the bone-weary exhaustion that claws at him. Instead, he watches in utter silence, the slackening expressions of his teammates as they descend into varying stages of sleep.

He counts, when there is nothing else to do, a mindlessly, redundant act to stifle the adrenaline that still simmers in him. Of the twelve others who’d embarked on this mission, only five remain.

Erik doesn’t think of their deaths.

The minutes crawl by and he spends them staring idly out at the land sprawled and rendered crude before him. The cover of night turns everything into a shade of deep navy, but there is enough light from the moon in the cloudless night sky to see what destruction has wrought of a land once staggeringly beautiful. Open plains obstructed by smog, trees blown in half with their charred branches hanging limp in the stale air, thick coils of smoke punctuating each stretch of the route. There are decapitated bodies, blackened and crusted with blood on the sides of the gravel road, bodies of locals fleeing the villages, of soldiers retreating for the shoreline. Each and every one of them caught in an attack they were utterly defenseless against.

“What’s that you got there, mate?” Redford asks quietly, bumping shoulders. Erik frowns, following the other man’s gaze to his collar where he’d been fiddling subconsciously with the thin silver chain.

Erik relinquishes the death grip on his rifle to tug the bullet out of his uniform. It doesn’t gleam in the light, not when coated in drying blood and dulled from sweat and oxidation.

“Thas’ the captain’s, innit?” Redford says gravely. “I’ve seen ‘im toy with it same as you.”

Erik wraps his fingers tight around it and slips the bullet past his uniform once more.

“He told me to keep it,” he says stiffly. “For luck.”

Erik can feel the pair of eyes continue to stare at him in the somewhat uncomfortable silence. He wonders if the simple act of a dying man in relinquishing something of such import to a no-name, lowly corporal might be construed as favoritism. He doesn’t risk meeting Redford’s gaze; his exhaustion cannot handle another confrontation just yet.

“Whas’ it feel like?”

Erik tenses, though he notes the unexpected nervousness that tinges the soft question.

“Metal. You … wha’, you can sort of sense metal, can’t ya?” Redford tries. “Or control it?”

He tries to read the man’s expression, to figure out where he’s going with this line of questioning. Mostly he sees an understandable wariness and innocent, harmless curiosity. Mostly.

“I can control it, yes,” Erik tells him bluntly. “It feels… almost alive. It hums in my hand and I can hear it all around me.” He hesitates, because he’s never been asked to explain what it’s like with his freak powers and it’s not something he’s spent much time pondering over. It has always been a part of him since he was a child and that was that.

“The metal _sings_ to you,” Redford says placidly. Erik might have bristled if there’d been the slightest hint of mockery. Even his calm bore exceptions.

“Yes.” Erik shrugs. “It’s comforting.” He levels Redford with a look, as if daring him to say otherwise.

He does not anticipate the fond grin that cracks the other man’s usually gruff image.

“I ain’t a bigot, Lehnsherr. ‘N neither are the other lads,” he says, voice low and gravelly. “We’re all brothers now. In arms and all tha’. We’ll not say a word about it if you don’t want us to.” He cracks a smile, stiff around the edges like he’s unused to it, but it’s genuine enough.

It is a peculiar thing; Erik hadn’t realized just how terribly he’d needed to hear this until Redford said it. He’s lived all his life on guard, hyperaware of the disproportionate capacity of humans for intolerance, of their propensity to turn cruelty to that which they do not understand. To now find some modicum of acceptance in spite of his _abnormality_ …

“Thank you.”

~*~

 _12 th Casualty Clearing Station_

Newman finds him once more at the front steps, hunched over his drawn knees, silent and small. His brows are knitted together, one of those bouts of migraines the boy’s often spoken of. They’d put it down to stress, mostly, despite his gut feeling that it’s something _more_. Not bad, just _more_ – a secret the young man’s kept strictly to himself.

“Charlie,” he calls out softly, careful not to startle him.

The boy jerks a little from where he’d passed out (nobody really sleeps anymore) and whirls around to face him with those distinctive blue eyes.

“Sir?”

Newman sits himself beside Charles, dusting the small stones and dirt from his palms. The young man pointedly refrains from staring, and he is grateful. His eyes are bloodshot and still a little puffy.

“There’s been news,” Newman begins carefully. “Plans for the end of the evacuation of the BEF and whatever French soldiers able to make the beaches – it’ll be tomorrow night. Nothing can be done for daylight evacuation, not with the Luftwaffe trolling the shores.” Charles gives him his patented look of understanding and disapproval all rolled into one impressive arrangement. As if he knows most clearly what he’s going to say next.

“And you are going to get yourself onto one of those boats.”

“But Sir– ” Newman raises a hand to stem the expected protest.

“Listen to me, Charlie.” Newman grips him firmly by the shoulders. “This was _never_ meant for you. Staying behind… it was never your burden to bear. You were _supposed_ to have been on one of the destroyers that just set sail from the docks. And if I can’t save all these men, I’ll be damned if I let another person share a fate that isn’t his to face.”

Newman nudges his chin and is painfully reminded of his baby boy whom he will never see again.

“At first light, take the jeep and drive yourself to Dunkirk.” _Before the place is overrun by Germans_. “This is an order, Xavier.”

Charles looks down at the ground.

“Is that understood?”

Charles’ shoulders slump even further. “Yes, sir.”

Newman offers up a wan smile, pats the boy on the cheek.

“Good lad. Get back inside and kip for the few hours.”

He says nothing about the way Charles’ eyes are glassy and his lower lip worried sore.

Charles says nothing of the heartbreaking memories of little West that have been the sole focus of Newman’s thoughts for the last twelve hours.

~*~

Erik is jolted out of his reverie by a most peculiar feeling in his head.

What he’s first mistaken for the humming vibrations of all the metal in the vehicle and his rifle, his buttons, his canteen… has escalated to an almost tangible, identifiable emotion. Like a living thing.

It flits about the edges of his mind, prodding curiously every now and then like a newborn pup, but never delving deeper. It extols calm and submissiveness, like a mental white flag, in waves that Erik cannot find it in himself to fight. The prickling sensation suddenly makes things _real_ and he is torn between his own curiosity and the desire to throw it out for trespassing. This…this is alien and discomfortingly unfamiliar.

 _Abnormal_.

Erik blinks, and the clarity of thought rushes back to him. He can still feel the presence, the calm being projected, but it no longer has an influence over him. He glances discreetly at his companion, finding Redford dozing against his field pack; completely oblivious.

Erik closes his eyes and concentrates until he discerns the single thought _it_ carries: sanctuary.

Puzzled, he thinks as firmly as he can.

_Was bist du?_

~*~

Charles cannot find sleep.

Between the sense of betrayal in abandoning everyone to save himself (even if it is an order), and the debilitating, oppressive air of despair consuming him, his mind refuses to shut up. Sprawled across the stiff cot, the sound of puttering feet and creaking floorboards echo obscenely loud in the quiet.

Charles rolls over onto his side and squeezes his eyes shut, burrowing into the makeshift pillow bundled from the blanket.

In times like these, he loathes being _different_. Under any other circumstance, the mental walls would be reinforced, a necessary skill he’d learnt young. They acted as a filter and shield, sparing him from the crippling voices of millions buzzing around his head like a particularly persistent fly that couldn’t be killed.

With the strain of war, though, Charles cannot scrounge up enough energy to erect those walls, let alone to maintain them for long. The only other alternative, as Charles had experimented, was invasive and tricky if he was to avoid detection. Years ago, to test the range of his powers, he’d let his mind stretch out as far as it could go, subconsciously cataloguing every single mind that fell within his reach. Each mind, you see, is unique in its impression to Charles, giving off distinct neural oscillations that helped him distinguish one person from another. It wasn’t necessary to enter the mind to pick up its signature, and so it made things easy for Charles to locate one person amongst hundreds of thousands as long as he’d sensed the person before.

During the experiment, Charles had chosen a single mind, different and prickly from all the others and had ventured gingerly into it. For two hours, he’d walked through the scientist’s mind, delighting in the wealth of knowledge embedded in the brain. Until he’d stumbled upon a forgotten memory and sent it all pear-shaped.

Charles deliberates attempting this again. He’s at the end of his tether and he craves reprieve like a tortured man. Living on nothing but three hour’s sleep filched involuntarily over the last week has rendered him all but dazed and it would be ludicrous for him to waste the Major’s goodwill by killing himself driving into a ditch.

Charles curls himself into a ball and lets his mind wander. The odds of finding a mind even remotely calm in this hellish place are next to none but he tries anyway. There’s no other choice, really.

He scans and traces feather-light touches on tens, hundreds of thousands of minds in the country, each one filled with a dizzying spiral of fear and anger, dark and consuming. He hadn’t expected much else, to be honest, but it is disappointing nonetheless. The longer he searches, the weaker he becomes, and even though it’s refreshing to let his powers run free after so long in chains, Charles is still rundown, still exhausted.

And then it hits him with the force of an oncoming train.

There, just within reach, is a mind that shines starbright in the gray and ordinary world of the uninspired.

Delicately, he treads on the farthest edges of the brain. If he had to illustrate the sight that greets him as he takes a peek into the mind through a buffer, it would be a swirling, festering tremble of emotions, dark and intimidating, balled and wrapped in locks and iron-chains. The mind is a cage, compartmentalized to a frightening degree with a wide open space of absolutely nothing, like a bubble of serenity beside a DA set to an unknown timer. It both amazes and horrifies Charles. He’s never encountered a mind like this, so disciplined and foreign in quite possibly the unhealthiest of ways.

But Charles hasn’t come here to judge, he’s here to seek refuge and he has found it. Focusing a little harder, he calls up the sensations of peace and calm in a bid to signal his presence as harmless. It works.

He loses track of time, content, much too content to languish in the ebb and flow of unseen thoughts. Without truly reading his host’s mind, all he gathers are faint impressions too blurred to comprehend, as if he’s glancing through a densely fogged window. In the void, Charles cautiously relaxes into a corner, making himself small and inconspicuous. All around him, beyond the bubble, he feels the steady, rhythmic thrum of his host’s mind as it processes, thinks and _dreams._ The bubble hums along in a lazy pattern that Charles finds ridiculously soothing and it makes him drowsy.

Charles is on the cusp of falling asleep when he hears it, a voice his senses classify as male from the weight and sharpness of the aura it carries.

“ _What are you?_ ” 

Charles doesn’t falter, doesn’t wait. He’s startled badly and it makes him recoil instantly. He retreats from the mind to find himself bolted upright in the squeaky cot. Back in the château. Back in his nightmare. His hands are shaking so badly, no matter how he wills them to stop and it feels too much like a dream. 

Except, Charles remembers. He remembers every curve, every synapse flaring, tangible and intangible as it lay cradled in his power. 

And he will _never_ forget. 

*** 

 _On the second of June, the trucks bearing the men of the Coldstream Rearguards pull up in the ruins of Dunkirk a short distance from the beach. The breaking of dawn has scarcely begun. Amongst the soldiers of the surviving First Battalion is Corporal Erik Lehnsherr, a young German Jew. Around his neck, hidden under the ragged collar of his uniform is a metal chain looped through an empty bullet shell of a Magazine Lee-Enfield. It is the only thing left in memory of his platoon commander._

_The plans for daylight evacuation have come to a halt as the Luftwaffe makes a target of the shore, raising the stakes far too high for safe docking. The French and Royal Navy have lost over two hundred vessels in the last seven days alone and cannot afford to lose any more. Captain Bill Tennant, overseer of Operation Dynamo, issues the order for evacuation procedures to continue only after sundown._

_There is nothing more to do but wait._

_*_

_At the same time, four miles from the beaches of Dunkirk at an abandoned château, Lieutenant Charles Francis Xavier of the Royal Army Medical Corp gathers himself into a jeep. It is barely functioning, but it is the only one in the last-standing Casualty Clearing Station._

_Before the first splash of color streaks the sky, the unmistakable rumbling of an engine shatters the silence of daybreak. Chief Surgeon Major Philip Newman stands a foot away from the wheel, awake to see his underling drive off to safety. There is no exchange of words, no second thoughts. The man hands over a crisp, white envelope bearing the name of a lady –Meredith – which the lieutenant accepts with a nod. Somehow, one way or another, it will find its way to its owner in the modest apartment tucked safe in London and the lady will not cry. With a final salute, the young man makes for Dunkirk harbor and as he steers, he prays that the other will live to see his son again. The same little boy he has seen flashes of when his mentor had seen him in his light._

_*_

_On the rotting wood of the port, Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier stand separated by some thousand men several yards apart, watching with anticipation – subdued and eager, respectively – as the HMS Malcolm looms ever closer. And it is on this same ship that they find passage back to Dover. Back to England._

_Both men are entirely ignorant of the other’s existence and there bears no reason that it ought to be otherwise. Not with so little in common._

_Erik became a soldier, having been driven by the necessity for revenge – German Jew, English Jew, his entire family lies in a pit in Warsaw. Charles became a soldier to force meaning into his life as a doctor – his faith in humanity long since mutilated by the estrangement and brutality that ‘family’ had bestowed upon him._

_But this is all important to know because the truth is very much paradoxical. Because the truth is that they are never more the same than they are by their difference. For all that they are oblivious to the other, they have actually known, the both of them, from the moment their minds touched._

_And this, this, is perhaps most important of all._

**“This is not the end, is neither the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning.” – Winston Churchill.**

~ End of part I ~

**Author's Note:**

> As you might realise, I'm pretty sure I've butchered Major Newman's life should he really exist and created his family for him. And while the First Battalion was in fact, deployed, I am uncertain if 4 Company was actually involved. I must once again apologise for twisting History so much :/ Still, I hope you enjoyed this overblown prologue of sorts.
> 
> My undying gratitude goes to MonMon for the German translations :D
> 
>  **Glossary:**
> 
> _BEF_ – British Expeditionary Forces  
>  _DA_ \- Delay-Action Bomb. It was used extensively by German and British bomber aircraft during WWII  
>  _Krauts_ – A rather… derogatory name used for Germans. Kinda like ‘Jerry’  
>  _Dunkerque_ – The French spelling of Dunkirk  
>  _RAMC_ – Royal Army Medical Corp.  
>  _Lee-Enfield_ – The ones used by the men during this period of time was the Rifle No. 4 Mk1  
>  _Lass mich nicht im Stich_ – Don’t fail me now.  
>  _Bis bald, mein Herr_ – See you soon, Sir.  
>  _Was bist du?_ – What are you?


End file.
